Saturday, May 26, 2012

Potential Side-Effects

(re-posting this one)

Discontinue taking this medicine if your hairturns into snakes. If you experience an erectionlasting four hours or more, then we must assumethat, for better or worse, you have a penis; anyway, attach a small flag to the erectionand declare yourself emperor. If, aftertaking this medicine, you start swallowingpebbles, it probably has nothing to dowith the medicine. Other side-effectsmay include spending too much moneyon this medicine, the desire to organizeparades, death, twice the number of toesyou now have, a craving for goats' hoovespickled in brine, and a heart-rhythmthat sounds like the samba. If you experience

a sudden dropp in self-esteem, expectyour doctor to hang up when you call, assuming you can find a doctor. Ifyou actually took this medicine, then it's already too late, and an aged, unbathed shaman will be escorting youto another zone of time and space--not necessarily forever; don't over-react.

As with all medicines, keep this onebeyond the reach of lemurs and hippopotami.If you have any questions, write them outon a piece of paper and eat the paper.We're a pharmaceutical conglomerate.We're not your friend. Whatis it with you people, anyway?

Author of Three To Get Ready (novel), The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, and A Langston HughesEncyclopedia. Co-author of Metro:Journeys In WritingCreatively. Co-editor of The Greenwood Encylcopedia of AfricanAmerican Literature. Play the keyboard. Write novels and screenplays; blog. Travel a bit. Go fly-fishing. Member of St. Leo Parish, Tacoma. Husband and father.Member, Age of Aquarius.